


But not our hearts

by destinyofshipwreck



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: AU where they're spies, Bribery, F/M, Money laundering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinyofshipwreck/pseuds/destinyofshipwreck
Summary: Their little file, so far, has been an exercise in frustration. It has something to do with money laundering and state bribery of judges in amateur sport. It falls under agency jurisdiction only for reasons perhaps to do either with the source of the laundered funds or their ultimate destination. The questions to which she is afforded answers are few. Most of the context she wishes she knew is not within the purview of her involvement, Lauzon told her delicately when she asked. Her training has been combat, not analysis, and has not felt much different from her usual days at the gym.It's been six months since her first meeting at the Montreal field office and she still doesn't know the names of any of the alleged principals. And Moir's still grinning at her.Tessa can't shake the feeling that this will turn out to have been a joke at someone's expense, but whose, she couldn’t say.





	1. (if we are not) spies

"Thanks for coming. I'll only need you for a moment," Lauzon, her handler, says, leading her into a dimly lit boardroom.

He's a laconic Montrealer whom Tessa likes, but cannot get a read on. She often doesn't realize that he's told her a joke until so much time has passed that she can't reasonably react to it. She suspects that he thinks she's an idiot.

"Virtue, this is Moir," he says. "You've been assigned to work in tandem on our little file."

"Hi, Tess. Come here often?" says Moir, with a shit-eating grin.

She recognizes him from the rink: the compact dark-haired boy with deep edges and a nice ass, another new arrival whose practice time had not yet overlapped with hers and to whom she had not been formally introduced.

"We've made arrangements with Romain and Marie-France to have you paired up," says Lauzon. "Work hard, get on the senior circuit and stay there, no problems, alright? I'll be in touch when we have something for you."

Lauzon turns to leave, but pauses to look pointedly at Moir.

"Keep it together," he says.

Their little file, so far, has been an exercise in frustration. It has something to do with money laundering and state bribery of judges in amateur sport. It falls under agency jurisdiction only for reasons perhaps to do either with the source of the laundered funds or their ultimate destination. The questions to which she is afforded answers are few. Most of the context she wishes she knew is not within the purview of her involvement, Lauzon told her delicately when she asked. Her training has been combat, not analysis, and has not felt much different from her usual days at the gym.

It's been six months since her first meeting at the Montreal field office and she still doesn't know the names of any of the alleged principals. And Moir's still grinning at her.

Tessa can't shake the feeling that this will turn out to have been a joke at someone's expense, but whose, she couldn’t say.

They agree to meet at the rink at six the next morning. Moir, unasked, brings coffee (black) and seems to intuit that he shouldn't expect any conversation from her so early in the day.

Tessa revises her estimation of him as their practice unfolds: deep edges and nice ass, but he's also got soft knees, broad steady hands, and a strong turnout that flows from the hip. They run through some familiar old CDs to get a feel for each other, so committed to memory they don't need the music, and the feel, she's surprised to find, is fluid.

"Not bad, Moir," she says, when they stop for water and to catch their breath.

"You need to call me Scott when we're here, or people will think we aren't friends," he says.

"Fine. But I'm not calling you Scott in the field," she says. "Wouldn't want _you_ to think we're friends." He smirks triumphantly to hear his name on her lips.

"Fine," he says, then, "Come on, midnight blues," and pulls her away from the boards and into his arms, her back to his front.

"So, where were you recruited from," she asks in an undertone as they glide through the pattern.

"Collegiate skating. Full ride scholarship to Colorado," he says. "You?"

"Canton," she says. "I moved there from London when I was a kid. But I was going to come back to Canada anyway, because, I mean, the thing with Igor, you must have heard, it was all about to fall apart, so I left, you know, before it did."

"Rough," he says.

"It was, but Marie-France has been great so far. I took a break from skating last year and started doing comp lit at McGill, but couldn't stay away forever. Anyway, you said collegiate, where did you learn to skate with a partner?"

"Kitchener, just up the road from home."

She knew from his accent that he must've grown up in southern Ontario, but it still startles her to hear it confirmed.

"Funny we never met," he adds, as he guides her into a rocker. She feels light and liquid in his hands. "We've got some lost time to make up for."

"Maybe you do, but I'm here to work," she says.

"Here to work, while we wait for work to give us work," he says. "Sure."

Tessa is embarrassed to find that she feels a little bereft and off-balance when they wrap up a few minutes before eight, like she's missing a necessary counterweight.

"Same time tomorrow?" she asks.

"Yeah, they gave us two hours of ice time to ourselves every morning this week to get acquainted, and then we'll actually start practicing on Monday," he says.

"Good," she says.

"Better than good, I think," he says. "See you tomorrow, Tessa."

"Thanks for the coffee, Scott," she says, leaning into the last syllable. He's grinning again as they part ways.

Their assignment, when they finally receive it after an extended wait, is anticlimactic: they're to keep an eye on a particular French official during the banquet at 4CC in Colorado Springs, and find out which hotel room, if any, he leaves the banquet early to visit, in the event that he does leave early, and otherwise they are to report that nothing happened, with the report to be delivered by dead drop at a specified location inside the hotel, which will be provided to them on arrival. It's hardly the cloak-and-dagger act that Tessa had been imagining.

"You're not to engage him," says Lauzon sternly.

"Like, punch him?" asks Moir.

"In  _conversation_ ," says Lauzon, looking pained. "Do not be noticed."

"It'll be tough if we win, we'll be the belles of the ball," says Moir.

"You're resourceful," says Lauzon. "Figure it out."

They work out their contingency plan on the ice the next day, which Tessa has found is the best place to discuss sensitive matters. He talks constantly to her in practice anyway, about weekend plans, about his family, about what they're reading, about her classes, to test her focus with jokes, or just sings to her if they run out of conversation; nobody listens to them anymore.

"I'm a little disappointed," she says.

"What, that it's so boring?"

"Yeah," she says, "I was thinking there would be more trench coats and dark alleys and phone booths and stuff."

"Right," he says, "Wigs and costume changes and pounding techno beats."

"Exactly," she says, "Roundhouse kicks and moments of sexual tension with another spy played by Gina Torres, paragliding into Didier's château in the Alps in the middle of the night, that kind of thing."

"It's really devastating that we aren't being asked to jump out of any airplanes," he says. "Maybe next time."

"But we really will look pretty stupid if we duck out of the banquet at a weird moment," she says. "Maybe just one of us could go? Or we could fake illness, set off a mass food poisoning panic, and make our exit in the ensuing stampede."

"I don't think that counts as not being noticed," he says. "I do have an idea, but I won't be offended if you hate it. We could pretend to be so into each other that we have no choice but to leave, otherwise we'd be arrested for public indecency. So, like, people can notice, but they'll wish they hadn't."

"So really, it's in everyone's best interest for us to ditch the party," she says. "It'd start some rumours."

"I don't want you to be the subject of any gossip," he says.

"It wouldn't be the first time," she says.

"So, maybe?" he asks.

"If it comes up, yes, maybe, but we'll play it by ear," she answers, as their music ends.

It feels good to talk freely, and it feels good to conspire, and the Latin dance doesn't feel so bad, either.

It's bronze for them at 4CC: they were in second after the short dance, but he stumbles coming out of a twizzle in the free and nearly knocks them off the podium. It's not a mistake he ever made in practice, and he looks so angry with himself that Tessa doesn't bring it up, except wordlessly and by implication, pressing unusually close to him during the medal ceremony.

She understands him well enough by now to know that he won't believe her if she tells him she isn't angry, but there are so few ways to show it.

Her dress for the banquet (black, satin, lace-trimmed) is lower cut than is her usual formalwear habit. She's inspecting the line of her legs in stiletto heels when he knocks twice on the door of her room.

"Looking good, Moir," she says, taking in the sight of his tuxedo and spit-polished oxfords. "You clean up well."

"You're not bad yourself, Virtue," he says.

"I thought if we might cause a scandal, it behooves me to look at least a little scandalous," she says. "Too much?" The slit up the right thigh is nearly to her hip.

"Not at all," he says, extending his arm to her. "Allons-y."

Dinner is as excruciating as any banquet ever is, somehow not made any more interesting by their ulterior motive. Their mark is in the opposite corner of the ballroom from them, but they're closer to the exit; he's seated directly in Moir's line of sight.

He excuses himself immediately after the last course, before coffee is served. Moir taps Tessa's thigh.

She leans over and whispers in his ear, "Too bad we're not allowed to punch him, because if we miss dessert, I'll need to take it out on someone."

Moir reaches up to cup her cheek and toy with her hair. He turns her head to whisper back to her, letting their lips brush on the way past. "Don't forget that I'm blameless here, but we can order any room service you want. I guess this is our cue."

In her peripheral vision Tessa sees the Americans down the table, Davis and White, exchange disgusted looks. Davis rolls her eyes.

She lets Moir pull her to her feet. His hand slides down her back to land on her ass, and she giggles, stumbling into him. She lets him guide her toward the door to the lobby, fifteen feet back from their mark, sashaying a little, their hands entwined, bumping her hip against his at every step.

They're close enough that the mark holds the elevator door for them. The button for the sixth floor is already lit, which Tessa pretends not to see.

"Six, please," she coos to him, still pressed against Moir, whose lips are buried in her hair. His hands are wrapped around her waist, which she notices with a thrill that they nearly span.

The mark politely averts his eyes as Tessa leans up to kiss Moir on the mouth. He lets her for a few moments, then cups her cheek again to move her away, looking up. She giggles again, breathily, into his neck.

"Sorry," says Moir.

"It's fine," says the mark, still looking away.

The elevator door opens and he steps out without looking back. Moir pulls her out of the elevator a second later and pins her against the wall, hiking her dress up around her hips with both hands. She gasps, for effect, and curls one leg around his thigh. Out of the corner of her eye she sees which room the mark disappears into with a knock—616.

"That's it," she whispers to Moir, who steps back immediately, looking slightly flustered.

She scribbles what Lauzon had insisted that they refer to as their "intel", 6-1-6, on a matchbook, and tucks it underneath the potted plant between the elevator doors on the fourth floor.

She pulls off her stilettos for the short walk to Moir's room at the end of the hall. He's as good as his word, and calls for room service as soon as she's closed the door behind her, and twenty minutes later there's a tray of chocolate fondant plated with mint in a pool of raspberry coulis, crème brûlée, bread pudding, and cheesecake.

"You get first dibs, I know this was a real sacrifice for you," he says. She opts for the fondant.

"So, Moir," she says. "I guess that people are gonna talk." She brushes coulis from her lip, leaving a smear of red lipstick and fruit at the corner of her mouth.

“Let them,” he says.


	2. central park monday

"Are you sure I should go by myself?" asks Tessa. "It seems like a risk."

Lauzon had summoned her back to the field office, alone this time, to brief her on the next assignment. It's concurrent with a media event in New York for women in sport she was already slated to attend the next week: after the press conference, she is to plant a recording device on a target; then, during the cocktail party the same evening, she is to retrieve it, and deliver it to a contact in Central Park by brush pass.

Moir, not on the event agenda, has no reason to accompany her.

She doesn't say  _I’m not sure I know how to be alone anymore_ , or _I don’t know how to talk to anyone else,_ but it’s humiliating enough to think it.

"You understand the need to keep travel costs to a minimum," says Lauzon. "You’ll be fine."

"Can Moir know?" she asks.

"You're a team," says Lauzon, whose expression is impassive. “You need not keep anything from him.”

The target, another Frenchman, is middle-aged, paunchy, and balding, and leers at Tessa when she introduces herself to him after the press conference. She’s wearing a collarless silk chiffon blouse with a wide scoop neck that displays the full expanse of her collarbone specifically for this. He's flattered by her attention, breathing wetly into her ear when she leans forward for la bise.

She slips the recording device, about the size of a slender thumb drive, out from under the waistband of her pencil skirt, just as the target rests his hand (cold and clammy) on the small of her back (she is too focused to shiver with revulsion but it's a near miss). She drops the device into the welt pocket on the left front of his jacket without attracting his notice.

"I'll see  _you_  later," she says, and winks at him as she slides out of his grip.

It's faintly nauseating. More nauseating still would be reversing the operation in two hours at the cocktail party, she expects; she's also wearing seamed stockings and a garter belt in case the need presents itself. In the meantime she settles for grim satisfaction at her success.

But in fact the cocktail party is another anticlimactic nonevent, because the target divests himself of tie and jacket, slinging it over the back of a stool at the end of the bar. Tessa sidles along the wall as he leans over to attract the bartender's attention, the back of his shirt soaked through with sweat, and retrieves the device without needing to speak to anyone at all.

She slinks away from the party and outside into the early evening rain, in the direction of the park, a full ten minutes ahead of schedule.

Her contact in the park is a blonde woman with a round face, high cheekbones, and the long, feathered bob that Tessa associates with Québec, walking briskly toward her in the opposite direction at the appointed location and time, her hands tucked into her coat pockets.

"Pardon me," she says to Tessa, sidestepping into her path instead of out of it, as if inadvertently. Tessa slides the device into her pocket. The contact brushes her fingertips against Tessa's lightly in acknowledgment.

"Of course," says Tessa, and both she and the contact move on, hardly having broken stride.

It's only five minutes after nine, and she's out of work. There is small but not negligible consolation in the fact that the weather afforded her an opportunity to wear a trench coat in the field, which she's looking forward to reporting to Moir as soon as she practicably can. Still no wigs, costume changes, or roundhouse kicks, but the night is young.

She returns to her room for long enough to ditch the coat, shake the rainwater out of her hair, and tuck a book into her purse (Blanchot, for a class:  _The Instant of My Death_ ), then heads downstairs to the bar for a solitary nightcap.

A frisson of _something_ runs up her spine when she walks in, of unexpected familiarity or elation, and it takes her a moment to place as she scans the room—it's Moir, somehow, miraculously, sitting in a corner away from the light. She practically floats across the room toward him.

"Come here often?" she asks, sliding into his booth and tucking herself against his side.

"Jesus,” he says. “Did you see me from the door? What was the angle? From the back and in a mirror, in the dark?”

"Don’t make it sound so creepy,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

"Visiting family," he says. “Lauzon told me where you were staying, and I thought you might like company.”

"You could've texted," she says.

"It seemed intrusive, I didn't want to presume you weren't busy," he says.

"You mean you missed me," she says.

"I did," he says. It's been all of a day and a half. "How was your event?"

"Boring," she says. "Everyone wants to hear that sports are getting better for girls, but I'm not supposed to say that they aren't, so I just say the word 'empowerment', and they move on." She's done it dozens of times and by now it's rote.

"Darling of the press," he says. "How was the other thing? You could have told me about it, it wasn't a secret."

"Sleazy, but finished," she says. "I didn't want you to be jealous that I got an assignment you didn't."

"Sweetheart of the field," he says. "I know where I stand."

"Why don't we go upstairs so we can actually talk," she says.

"No drink for you?" he asks.

"There's whiskey in the minibar and ginger ale in the vending machine, and I bet you can steal us a lime," she murmurs, nodding toward the bar, where the bartender's back is turned to a tray of prepared garnishes. They get up silently, in unison. Moir palms a generous fistful of citrus wedges on the way past.

"Glad to see all that tactical training wasn't wasted on you," she says to him in the elevator. "My tax dollars hard at work."

He's staring at her with an inscrutable expression, and it raises the hair on the back of her neck and goosebumps on her arms.

“Honing your observational skills?” she asks.

“You look good, is all,” he says. They reach her floor and the door slides soundlessly open.

“I look like my blowout got wrecked in the rain,” she says, leading him up the hall.

“Your blouse,” he starts to say.

"Oh, please, no," she interrupts. "I only wore it to distract some gross old jackass, don’t, please, I’m never going to wear it again." They've reached her room, and it takes her a few clumsy ill-timed attempts to manage the keycard. She can't take her eyes off of him.

"If you won't let me compliment you, maybe you could let me take it off of you," he says, quieter, latching the deadbolt behind them.

"With your hands full of lemons and limes," she says. "Wash them before you touch it, it's expensive to dry clean."

He drops the fruit into the empty glass pitcher on the nightstand and disappears into the bathroom for a few moments. She's lightheaded, can't catch her breath, still standing by the door.

"Where were we," he says, reemerging right next to her. His fingertips brush her collarbone and then move lower, unfastening the hook and eye closure at the neck of her blouse and then, methodically, each shell button in turn. She closes her eyes.

"I want to kiss you now," he murmurs, "But I need you to tell me what we are tonight, are we colleagues, or—"

"Colleagues is fine," she gasps, and he kisses her urgently, wrapping both hands around her tangled hair and pulling it to tilt her head up to meet him, shoving her backwards against the door with his hips.

He's so hard already, straining against his jeans, and feeling it makes her gasp again and yank her skirt up around her hips so she can wrap both legs around him.

"I didn't bring a condom," he says abruptly, apparently just realizing.

"They never gave you the safe sex talk at spy school for boys?" she asks. "Me either, but I really did just come here to work."

"We'll have to settle," he says, and carries her to the bed, lays her out on it, and slides his fingers under her thong.

She's so wet that his fingers meet no resistance. She tilts her hips as he slides an exploratory index finger into her, and he swears, and he looks like he's maybe about to say her name; Tessa forestalls it by reaching for him through his jeans. He's dripping precome freely through the crisp denim and her shaking fingers slip on the fly, but after a few moments she manages it, and tugs them down to his hips. She wraps her hand around his cock, and he swears again.

"What's the best way," she whispers. He rolls onto his side next to her and she drapes one leg over his knees, her thighs spread apart.

"How's this," he whispers back. He slides a second finger into her, and twists his body away from her slightly to pull her thighs further apart, and leans forward to kiss her. His cock throbs in her hand and she squeezes him hard, feeling out where he's most sensitive, setting a rhythm.

"I think we can make it work," she whispers into his mouth.

He comes first, hot and wet in her hand, with a shudder, and the movement of his fingers inside her loses its sense.

"Fuck me like you mean it, Moir," she says, and he shoves a third finger into her roughly, and that's all it takes for her; her body convulses and her thighs clench around his forearm, and she digs her fingernails into the back of his neck. He kisses her all the way through it, and curls his fingers softly inside her as she comes back to herself, eliciting a fresh shiver each time, until she grabs his wrist and pulls him away.

"You could break my wrist like that, with your thighs," he says, massaging his right hand with the left.

"I could break your neck like that," she says, panting. "Why do you think the agency recruited me?"

She rests her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and they lie together in silence until they can breathe again.

"Why are we doing this," she says.

"Since Four Continents I've had this thing about you and elevators. As between colleagues, I mean," he says back, quietly, reaching for her hair again.

"That was months ago," she says.

"You never wondered why I started taking the stairs all the time," he says, tilting back her head.

"Cardio, I thought," she says.

"Do you ever," he whispers, "Stop talking," and he sucks her lower lip between his teeth and bites it, gently.

It's at least another half an hour of slow, soft kisses before Tessa moves away from him, and it's only because she can’t stop herself from yawning.

"Fair," says Moir. "Do you still want that whiskey and ginger?"

"Actually, I should kick you out so I can take a shower and draft the op report and get some sleep," she says. "My flight's at eight."

"Mine's not 'til the afternoon," he says, "So I guess I'll see you at the rink on Wednesday."

"Sure," she says, getting up and pulling off the rest of her clothes.

"Goodnight, Virtue," he says softly, and kisses her forehead, and she closes the bathroom door.

When she emerges from the shower he's gone, of course, but the electric kettle's on, nearly boiling, and he's left her a slice of lemon in a mug beside it on the desk.


	3. rockin' in the free world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott—she's been practicing thinking of him on a first name basis at the rink—waylays her in the foyer outside the gym after circuit training late that afternoon, stepping in front of her before she reaches the door. They're the last to leave.
> 
> "So," he says. "I was thinking, instead of you going home by yourself to fall asleep in front of the TV, or whatever it is that you do, I could go with you."

"Virtue, please exercise patience. I will contact you when it's time," says Lauzon. The line goes dead with a click in her ear.

Tessa can hardly blame him for not wanting to field anxious calls from her, but on the other hand, she can hardly be blamed for wanting more to  _do_.

Two weeks ago, she explained to him in his office, pacing an agitated circuit between the desk and the bookcase, that the wait was agonizing. The absence of context for what they might be asked to do next, as she complained to him by telephone a week later, was interfering with her concentration.

"You were recruited because of your athletic skill, not any latent analytical prowess," he had told her then. "Compartmentalize."

She manages to hold off for four days before she can't help herself and calls again, this time in the evening, from home. The number Lauzon gave her seems not to be an office line, and is never answered: her protocol is to leave a voicemail with only the number of the most recent phone issued to her, to be switched out biweekly, then wait for the call to be returned, after precisely sixty minutes.

The routine is designed to acclimate her to covert communications in the field, she knows, but it is hard to take herself seriously in the almost extravagant banality of her current context—alone in her kitchen, with a drawerful of burner flip phones in plastic bags labelled with dates in black marker.

One hour later, the most recent phone rings, and it's a woman’s cold, clipped voice on the other end of the line.

"Lauzon has asked me to liase with you this week," she says. "Chouinard. We weren't introduced but we've met." Tessa recognizes the voice from their brief exchange at the brush pass in New York.

"Hi," says Tessa, stupidly.

"What do you need," says Chouinard.

"I—" she pauses, unsure, then continues, "I just wanted to know if there was anything else. From the recording. I mean, did you need anything else from us."

"Not yet," says Chouinard.

"Could I—could I at least hear the recording," Tessa asks, knowing what the answer will be.

"Maybe eventually," says Chouinard, "But for now, no. Is that all?"

"I guess," says Tessa. "I just, I feel like there is something we should be working on, instead of waiting."

"You both could consider finding an edge every now and again," says Chouinard curtly. "Goodnight, Virtue."

Chouinard's remark about her edges rings in her ears the next morning at 7am, when she and Scott meet at the rink to drill elements of their free dance. It's been plagued with issues since their near disaster in Colorado. Scott's confidence in himself is shot, she can feel it in his grip; sometimes too tentative around her waist or thigh, sometimes too firm. It's a fight to maintain her confidence in him, and she's sure he can feel that, too, in her hesitation to lean into his spread eagle. It doesn't feel light and liquid, but disconnected and adversarial.

"That's enough," says Marie-France after two hours. Her brow is furrowed. "Whatever it is, work it out."

They're leaving for Worlds in Nice in eight days.

Scott—she's been practicing thinking of him on a first name basis at the rink—waylays her in the foyer outside the gym after circuit training late that afternoon, stepping in front of her before she reaches the door. They're the last to leave.

"So," he says. "I was thinking, instead of you going home by yourself to fall asleep in front of the TV, or whatever it is that you do, I could go with you."

There's no place in particular that feels like home for her, and she's appointed her 2 1/2 in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce like a hotel: no textile that can't be bleached stark white; kitchen cabinets sparsely filled from the restaurant supply store, in the interest of saving cost and not making any decisions; bland Structube furniture; no magazines or books. She keeps a P.O. box kilometres away in Laval for a mailing address. The prospect that he might see the empty apartment and draw any inferences about her from it is unappealing.

"Hmm," she says.

"Or, you could come home with me," he says.

It seems equitable to her that she not see his apartment either.

"Maybe," she says.

"Because," he continues, "It's not like you didn’t have a nice time with me in New York.”

"A nice time," she repeats with a grimace. "Thanks, that's flattering."

"And it's not like either of us has anything better to do," he adds.

He's right, which Tessa finds mildly vexing.

"Real compelling offer," she says, "But no, what happens in the field should stay there, like Vegas."

"Or hotel hallways in Colorado Springs," he says, and Tessa shivers. For a moment she entertains the hope that he won't notice, but of course he does, and steps closer to her.

"We've been in the field for, like, maybe five hours, total," he continues, slinging an arm around her shoulder and pulling her toward him. She lets herself be drawn forward. "How could it possibly be different there."

"It's the mindset! It's professionalism. You spent the same six months in training that I did, learning about conflicts of interest. Don’t be stupid."

"You'll fuck me as a professional but not as a friend?" His fingers are at the nape of her neck, toying with the strands of her hair that came loose from her chignon in the shower, and his breath is soft against her cheek.

"God, don't put it that way. It's just different, you don't have to interrogate me about it."

"No, I see how it is. You're afraid you’ll call me Scott, and I'll get the wrong idea," he says, his face now alight with amusement. "That's ice cold, Virtue, but you can call me whatever you want."

He may also be right about this, which Tessa finds downright infuriating. She settles on a deflection.

"If I kiss you," she says, "Will you stop coming on to me?"

"Try it and see," he says.

She does: he's so close to her that she hardly has to tilt her head to meet his lips with hers. He starts to murmur something, and she bites his lip, and whatever it was is subsumed into a soft moan.

"I wanted to ask," he pulls back to say, "Your place or mine."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she says, and kisses him again, more urgently. His hands find the small of her back and she rolls her hips toward him, and he moans again into her mouth. A thrill races up her spine, of competence and control, and she twists her fingers into his hair, crushing her lips against his, sliding her tongue past his teeth, overwhelming him.

"Jesus," he says, after several long minutes. He's out of breath, deeply flushed, very hard, and shaky on his feet. "Maybe not in the foyer in front of the security camera _._ Look, it's six, no one's here, and they won't be for the next little while. I think we have about twenty minutes, if we're discreet."

Tessa almost laughs aloud at the cognitive dissonance—the prospect of being discreet around the colleagues who already think they're sleeping together, which they arranged on purpose—but then his teeth are on her collarbone and his hands are in her hair, working the bobby pins loose and combing his fingers roughly through it as it falls over her shoulders, and the thought passes.

"Make it count, Moir," she says instead.

He pauses long enough to take her arm and pull her into the men's locker room, the nearest to the door out of the camera's line of sight.

"Hang on," he says, opening a locker, reaching up to the top shelf, and pulling out a box.

"Why on earth do you have an entire box of condoms in your locker," she says. “Keeping busy?"

"Just trying to stay on top of our colleagues' expectations for us," he says. "What would they think if I didn't?”

She's about to applaud his commitment to the ruse, but he grabs her and turns her around and she's suddenly facefirst against the bank of lockers, and he's pinning her arms behind her back with one hand and wrestling her leggings down her hips to midthigh with the other, and then he's sliding two fingers deep into her even though she's still tangled in her clothes and can't part her legs for him, and then he releases her for a moment and when he comes back to her she feels the tip of his cock against her, and his teeth on the back of her neck.

"How's this," he whispers.

"Good," she whispers back, and he presses himself into her slowly at first, then quicker as she pushes her hips back to meet him, and the angle is not perfect, and it's too fast, and the room is freezing, and a fluorescent light is flickering erratically in her peripheral vision, but he reaches around her to touch her clit, and his fingertips are rough and calloused, and it shouldn't work for her, but it does, and she comes around him, a little ignominiously, a little in spite of herself, cold stainless steel pressing a lattice into her cheek.

"Fuck," says Scott, and she feels his whole body shudder against her.

They're both still for a few moments, breathing hard, his fingers resting against her, before he pulls away.

"We'd better go before anyone gets here," he says.

"Okay, but you'd better let me drive next time," she says, tugging her leggings back into place. Her hair is a lost cause, but there's a Team Canada toque in Scott's still-open locker, and she grabs it and pulls it on.

"Next time, eh?"

"Shut up."

She's a little unsteady leaving the locker room, not quite prepared to step back out into the world, and sinks onto the bench in the foyer. He sits beside her, close, but not touching.

"Technically, we're at work here, too," she says.

" _Ice_  cold," he says again, but he wraps an arm around her waist, and she takes the liberty of resting her head on his shoulder.

A handful of skaters arrive at the same time, giving their bench a wide berth on their way past to the locker rooms.

"I wanted to say something to you," she says when the foyer is empty again.

"Have at it," he says.

"It's weird," she says carefully, "That you were in New York that weekend."

"What was weird? That my brother and his wife live there with my nieces, and I like to visit them sometimes? Here." He pulls his phone out of his back pocket, opens the camera roll, and scrolls up. "The youngest just turned three."

There's a whole series of photos of a child's birthday party: a little dark-haired girl in a pink dress and paper hat; an elaborate cake; a foil banner on the wall that reads SABRINA; a grinning man who looks just like Moir but softer around the jaw and greying at the temple, a laughing blonde woman with her arms wrapped around him; a tableau with an older girl solemnly looking out over a mountain of wrapped gifts piled on an oak floor in the foreground, a brindle Great Dane sprawled on a taupe suede sofa behind her, sunlight streaming in through a wide window in what looks like an airy high-ceilinged loft.

"I mean, that you knew where I was staying and met me there."

"You were staying at the conference hotel. I found out from Lauzon but could have found out from looking at the program. Which you showed me."

She had, and had forgotten.

"Right," she says.

"Virtue, what's actually bothering you?" he asks.

She takes a deep breath.

"I'm not used to being bad at things," she says.

“Lay it all out there,” he says.

"And I'm not used to not knowing what to do," she says. "Lauzon thinks I'm an idiot."

"Nah," he says. "Lauzon just thinks you're impatient. I think you're looking for things to be stressed about so you don't have to stress about skating."

"Oh," she says.

"It's not obvious, I'm just really perceptive," he says.

"It’s true that I don't know what to do," she says, a little defensively.

"Me either," he says. "About this," he gestures toward the entryway to the rink, "About not knowing anything about what they're gonna want from us," he gestures vaguely westward in the general direction of the field office, "Or anything. But if everything fucks up at least we'll be wrecks who don't know anything together, and that part will be okay."

Tessa sits quietly for a few moments. Her bobby pins are still scattered on the linoleum floor but she is not moved to retrieve them.

"Do you trust me?" he finally asks.

"Not to screw up a lift and drop me? Not after today," she says.

"No, to stick around afterward," he says.

"Yeah, I do," she says, and means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Mood music for this 11-part exercise is Ann Vriend's marvellous concept album about two rivals who make a pact that they can fuck but must not fall in love, _When We Were Spies_.


End file.
